The Two Reasons Why You Aren’t Making Over $100K a Year

by Neil Patel on May 9, 2013

Do you know what you need if you want to make over $100,000 a year? It doesn’t matter if you are an entrepreneur or a nine-to-five worker… if you want to climb the corporate ladder, there are two things you need to embrace.

Do you know what they are?

No, they aren’t ambition or how smart you are. And luck has nothing to do with it.

It’s actually communication skills and how hard you work.

Lets break each of them down…

Communication skills

According to the dictionary, communication is “the imparting or exchanging of information or news.”

In the corporate world, things don’t get accomplished or done right mainly because of poor communication. It’s either due to the lack of communication, the speed with which people communicate or the fact that they may not be communicating clearly.

Let’s look at that closer:

Lack of communication – if you decide to not communicate often or not at all, this would be considered lack of communication. A good example of this is not responding to an email, ignoring a phone call or skipping meetings.

Communication speed – how fast you respond is the speed with which you communicate. For example, if someone sends you an email and you respond three days later, that’s considered slow communication. If someone sends you an email and you respond within an hour, that is fast communication. The same goes with voicemail messages or follow-up tasks you may receive from a meeting.

Clear communication – if you answer all of the questions someone asks you in a way that is understandable by everyone, that’s clear communication. If you aren’t answering all of the questions posed to you, that’s poor communication. And if you can’t give people clear instructions or details on what you want done, that’s also poor communication.

So, why is communication important? It’s because it shows that you care and you are on top of things. I actually recommended one of my friends to a local design shop in Seattle. The design shop got a $4,000 contract from my buddy, but they ignored some of his emails and decided to not respond to them in a timely manner.

My buddy was going to give them a $25,000 contract after they finished the $4,000 contract, but the design firm is most likely going to lose it. It’s not because their work isn’t good, but it’s because they don’t communicate effectively.

Whether you are an entrepreneur or a nine-to-five worker, you should have great communication skills:

Always communicate with people – you should never ignore anyone, no matter how irritating they may be.

Respond on time – it doesn’t matter if it is after working hours or on the weekend, responding within 24 hours at the latest is a requirement.

Over-communicate – the easiest way to make sure you are communicating clearly is to over-communicate. Be thorough responding to people or giving tasks to others.

Always take notes – whether it is a phone call or a meeting, you should always take notes and follow up with people. Give them a summary of what happened and follow-up steps to ensure everyone is on the same page.

If you follow the above communication steps, you’ll be better off than most people in the corporate world.

Work ethic

As a kid, I witnessed how my parents went from struggling immigrants with very little money to middle class citizens who succeeded through hard work. They did all of this so that they could provide my sister and me with a life that they didn’t have.

So, how did they provide us with a better life? They worked their butts off and did whatever it took no matter how unreasonable it sounded.

My mom, who was a teacher, couldn’t find a paying job when we moved to the U.S. So she worked for free at a school until they hired her. Because we didn’t have two cars, my mom had to walk several miles to work, while pushing my sister and me in a stroller… in hopes that one day she would get a paid job.

You don’t have to be the smartest person out there, but if you want to succeed, you need to do whatever it takes to get the job done.

For example, we have a lot of sales reps at KISSmetrics. One of our best sales reps is a gentleman by the name of Brandon. Why does Brandon do so well? It’s not because of his connections since he doesn’t know many check writers at large corporations. And it’s not because of his sales training… he got the same training as everyone else.

What separates Brandon from the crowd is that he works more hours than most people. He is the first person in the office every day and the last person to leave. When he gets home, he continues his workday. I continually see emails from him at 9 pm or even 11 pm at night asking me to review contracts. Heck, he even emails me over the weekends when he needs help so he can get some deals closed.

If you want to do well, take a page out of Brandon’s book and work hard for more than just eight hours a day.

It doesn’t matter how smart you are or how well connected you may be, working long hours efficiently really helps you get a leg up among your co-workers and the competition.

If that doesn’t convince you to work hard, think about how my mom got a paid teaching job because she continually worked for free. She got a paid teaching job even though English was her second language… all because she worked harder than most people.

Conclusion

I know I typically don’t write blog posts that are rants, but I had to because I continually see people with a ton of potential failing each day.

Why?

It’s because they are too lazy to communicate and they aren’t willing to work hard. It’s not that they aren’t smart or talented… they are just lazy.

If you want to make a lot of money, you need to work your butt off and over-communicate. People will eventually see how dedicated you are, and you’ll get ahead.

And if you don’t care about money, you should still work hard and be a great communicator. No matter what field you go into, e.g., the non-profit world, those two things will help you accomplish your goals.

If you want to break through to real profits online, you need some serious firepower. For a limited time I’m sharing some select tips and tricks Amazon, Microsoft, NBC & Hewlett Packard paid thousands of dollars per hour for, FREE.

Hi neil
i think you are absolutely right most of the people cant able to earn anough amount including me but now i think and i hope these tips or i can solve my problems and take a fresh start for new journey
Thanx a lot neil for this.

Nice article as always but i think information is also key. You need to get the right kind of information as well as act on it. Like you said, timing is also important. Sometimes i ignore some mails if i think the client is too troublesome. With your post,i intend to change that habit and see how it works out.

Why no comment? I’ve lost some respect for you about your opinions about work ethic. I assume Brandon isn’t making himself six figures, but he is helping you make 7+ figures. I see you haven’t responded to comment’ers who have voiced similar opinions? I don’t have respect for employers who promote ‘working yourself into the ground’ in order to be a success. There’s nothing wrong with hard graft, but you’ve missed the target on this one…..

Ian, I think you have misinterpreted what Neil was saying. He has never condoned “working yourself into the ground” in any of his posts, he is merely stating that one of his sales people are more dedicated than some others. In a good working environment, hard work and dedication is rewarded.

Though Hermione, you have to read beyond just words. What do you think the life of this awesome employee looks like ? Working your ass off like a lemming is definitely not the way to happiness.

A CEO who encourages such behaviour is not respectable, doesn’t help making the world a better place and arguably, this attitude is counter-productive even for the company on the long term.

Also, working like a lemming is not the way to get rich, I think you can find out why it isn’t on your own. There are TIMES when it is very important to push your limits, but it’s only useful starting from when you have made a plan and are acting on it, and until the rocket that you’re propelling is up to speed.

Communication however is unarguably very important. I only disagree on the work ethics; you have to live a healthy, varied life, and your employees must be happy and creative. (to be creative you have to do other things than your job)

I totally agree. When I’m trying to get quotes and estimates for contracts, some requests go unanswered – for hours, days, sometimes forever. Poor communicators, or just lazy? Probably both.
Great post.

Neil,
Well, I do make a bit more than that and I do 9 to 5 and business together. Therefore, I think I can talk from both the angles.

Your post is very relevant to business industry where entrepreneurs need to apply these two principles. But in 9 to 5 scenario? You just need to know a few people and be a litle opportunistic.

I surely know a lot of people who neither are hard working nor have good communication skills (especially in IT industry who make way more than $100,000 a year).

This kind of income in IT is not such a a big deal in US while I understand that you may have referred to people you work with or you know in other industry where this is a big number.

Besides, you didn’t even mention about Goals? I would like to mention that having a goal, a purpose is much more important than any skill or tactic because it’s not just about money. It is about the satisfaction. In my view, having a burning desire is they key ingredient for somebody to be driven to communicate well and work hard.

Unless you have extreme luck, hard work is the only thing that will get you closer to your dream.
I’m quite happy that I understood that as a youth, I’m currently 19 and have been pushing 75-90hours work/week since I dropped out of college 1 and a half years ago.

But it’s the last few weeks that I’ve started to see the results, results that I’ve never would’ve experienced if I hadn’t pushed myself to work harder then everyone else.

Communication is the key to any outcome. I have learnt from my past experience, I had the wrong mind set, and lost a contract & lack of speed.

Also thank you for reminding me about taking notes , something i should look at which is on my to do list…

Some communication tips which helped me, hope this helps

Ask your self why you doing it and dont worry to much about the outcome. Even if you don’t end up getting the contract, use it as a network contact. Im still in contact with the company who’s contract i lost. In fact we have a much better relationship than before.

Every 3 months I will make a call, just to find out how thing are going. You never know when they need something again or who they will send your way.

P.S Neil this blog post title got me all excited , thought it was a step by step project that we could learn from :-), maybe a future post?

I appreciate the “communicate” point Neil. When I wrote to you a couple weeks ago, I honestly didn’t expect an answer. When you did respond within a day, I felt grateful. Now I am big fan!! Bigger than what I would have been if you’d not of responded. Tracy

Great post!
It’s always about the basics. What’s great is, you make it attainable for everyone – it’s not just because you’re “lucky” or it was “easy for the other guy.” Nope, communicate and work hard and you can have it, too.

Great Rant!! Need to preach the basics sometimes. You have the best posts and most useful. Everyone is into collecting knowledge but not interested in execution and speed. No one wants to get their hands dirty. Cute phrases like ‘outsourcing’ are killing people, it’s a lottery mentality. Outsourcers are not robots that should be exploited because they live in countries with lower min. wages. They are people and work hard for their dreams and their families. They need consistent work and consistent ‘hi- fives’ and need guidance and prompt replies to emails, chats. They need to know that you care through weekly webinars. They need to see trust and compassion though how you treat them and others- this takes time and organisation. It takes work to make detailed tutorials and supporting tools to help them do the work efficiently. They need reassurance that they are improving, doing a good job and that there is room for error because it happens daily to the best of us. Work hard, reply fast to all questions and love people- simple as that!

Thanks Neil. Part of the challenge is how you can still be considered a good communicator when you receive many emails and requests and you must prioritize and limit your email time so you can actually get the project done! A response is still required — even just an acknowledgement that the request was received and will be addressed in due time.

Rightly said, Neil. Great communication is must to break barriers between you and your client. But Neil…are you sure if you break these barriers, you can make over $100K a year? I don’t think so. There are lot of other factors that determine your success.

Man, I really can’t say enough about how true this is… I see people that are way better at their jobs then I am, but just simply do not communicate their work well and therefore struggle to be truly successful… Well said Neil!

Great article, and true that working hard and keeping focus tremendously increases the likelihood of succeeding. That being said its insanely important to know that spending hours on stuff does not automatically increase your chance of succeeding. Its about doing the right stuff, stuff that increases your ROI in some way. Not just working for the sake of working. Be effective and efficient.

these are the basic reasons why not making money with blog.sir i would like to add more that it also depends on the type of niche.i am totally relying om google adsense as starting of my blog but i think when it will come about making money it will depend on niche.

I’d actually add a caveat to the work ethic section. It doesn’t always pay to work LONGER if you’re not already working SMARTER. For example, a girl I work with regularly stays later than everyone else and we all comment on it negatively because it’s not that she’s staying late to work harder and get more done. It’s that she can’t get her normal workload finished in a respectable time period.

Neil, I have to call B.S. on this post. I’ve liked most of your other posts. I look for your posts in my inbox.

You’re off on this one. This post is incredibly dismissive of millions of people who work hard and communicate well and haven’t figured out how to monetize their effort effectively.

Of the 100,000 odd teachers in the U.S. what percentage do you think make over $100,000? Very few. Are you saying none of them work hard and over communicate?

Of the 10’s of thousands of consultants in the U.S., the average is earning $50,000 a year. Are you betting that they don’t work hard or over communicate with their clients? No, they just don’t know how to market effectively, or choose an area they can monetize, or…

Here’s an article from the Onion, May 3, 2013 – “Widely regarded as one of the online world’s brightest personalities, sources confirmed Friday that famed 28-year-old social media rock star Ryan Wasserman, better known as @RWthinks by his legions of passionate fans, makes roughly $28,000 per year.”

You think Ryan doesn’t work crazy hours or over communicate. He’s one of the biggest communicator on Twitter! And he makes 1/4 of the income you claim!

Finally, take a look at your own post that you wrote a week ago about getting exposure for your business. It took time and money. Consider your first business where you lost $1m. Was that because you didn’t work hard or because you didn’t communicate?

I could go on and on.

This approach is far too simplistic. It gives people the wrong idea that they can choose anything whether they love it or not, whether other people value it and would pay money for it or not, and they can just work hard and communicate and make lots of money.

This post is such a disservice to your readers. It’s this kind of overly simplistic advice that gets newbie’s and hopefuls to spend money on empty promises instead of really looking at what makes business sense.

I agree with all of these points. I love your stuff too Neil, but this post is overly simplistic and as Tim said, wrong on a number of levels.

Although it’s true that most successful people probably communicate very well and work hard, those are by no means the limiting factors for success, and CERTAINLY not the limiting factors for getting to a $100k income.

I know that blog posts are never a complete take on a subject, but this stuff just isn’t right.

100% agree. I think of myself as pretty successful when it comes to business and I sometimes wondered why is it so. I’ve never thought about myself as someone particularly smarter than others so I knew it was not the reason. I always felt that communication is important and I even highlight this on my website as one of the strong points of working with me. Some of my clients even said that they have never received longer or more detailed emails from anyone before but they liked it very much because they felt like I really cared about their problem. Working hard was never difficult to me because I really like the job and it gives me a lot of satisfaction. After reading this post I felt like I just found the confirmation for my thoughts on being successful that I already knew but actually never clearly specified. I would also add one more thing to this equation, which is speed but you already mentioned it in your post under communication steps so the whole post is complete and I just totally agree.

Neil, I have to disagreee with your statement about working long hours.

Working more hours than the rest of your collegues day in day out is killing. I have 17 employees but I never allow them to work at home or over hours unless it’s neccesary. I also do not allow my clients to push me, my company or my employees to work harder for them. We always deliver the best results, and I know for 200% that this is because my employees spend time with their families, friends, hobby’s and things they love other than their work.

And no, they aren’t making a 100k a year… but we all know that money is nothing compared to the quality of life you can achieve by focussing more on yourself and your family.

Good post Neil! Completely agree that there is no substitute for hard work.

Though, I might not agree with Brandon’s example. You need to have a decent work-life balance. Do your work effectively and also invest time into relationship, reading, developing a hobby. Work might only take you to a certain distance, but when you had enough, you always go back and rely on the 3 things I just said.

Agree with everything you’ve written. Communication is that key ingredient that sets you a part. It’s the best tool you have of letting people understand what you’re thinking and eliminating any assumptions/guessing. Doesn’t apply to business, applies to anything.

I agree and disagree at the same time. Your input on communication – check. I agree.

Regarding working hard – I find your thoughts too much black and white… It really depends on your situation and the context of things. I generally work a lot of hours, but I’ve never made as much money as when I decided to work 9-5 for a month. I literally doubled my income (which was already good) from one month to the next by working about half the amount of time that I would normally work. The reason? I was more rested in my brain and thus able to focus end get things done much more effectively than usual.

The reason why I am often still working long hours really boils down to two things: 1) I love what I do and consider it my hobby, and 2) I am starting a new business or a new field of business within an existing one. It never has to do with making more money (at least not on a short term basis)

Great Post I just wanted to point out a spelling / grammar error i saw in the post.

This sentence:
It doesn’t matter how smart you are or how well connected you ———maybe —- (should be may be), working long hours efficiently really helps you get a leg up among your co-workers and the competition.

This post shows that you really got to love what you do to make it big, i think. There is no way in my 9-5 that i would be doing weekend work regularly. I need space. I don’t feel that way about my own business – at least not as often!

I do agree that communication is key, that’s important. But I’m not so sold on working 12 hour days as the key to getting ahead. Numerous studies have shown working more than 40 hour weeks week after week have shown little increase in productivity.

The articles aren’t talking about a one off 60 hour a week sprint cycle, but continuous overworking. Just don’t want anyone to think that just working ungodly hours will get you ahead. Or even communication and working ungodly hours will get you ahead. But what do I know

This post is just too simplistic in many ways. I agree with you about the importance of communication and hard work.

But, there is a difference between timely communication and communicating at odd hours consistently. By doing that you’re creating unrealistic expectations; you’re saying, “I don’t have a life other than work, and I’m at your beck and call any time of the day or night!”

There is a difference between being hard working and being a workaholic for the heck of it.

i agree communication is important.. and i agree you have to give your work you best shot.. but over working and 24/7 is unreasonable. I hope Brandon has a life outside of work, and i hope when the burn out comes into play you will still employ him for his dedication to your success.

Seriously, please give Brandon a vacation. Actually, encourage him to take one. Behaviors like that are not psychologically healthy. He’s at best going to burn himself out, at worst going to have a heart attack or serious medical problems.

This is slave thinking. Absolutely not not not correct advice. Specially on the work 8+ hours a day. Yes, the two components mentioned are positive and will help but things like being focused, keep good track of personal expenses etc. are way more important than being an overcommunicating hard working guy. People will work hard doing useless things. Your mother was focused on one specific thing which was easily and proven good for her. People today have 100’s of nice options to consider and deicing isn’t as easy as it was 50 years ago. Clarity is important, working hard on important things is important and communicating effectively when and only when you should. It’s not fun and it’s anti-productive to reply everything within 2-3 hours. It’s ok that the firm won’t get the 25k contract. Highly likely it didn’t want it because it has another philosophy. Your friend might not be their ideal customer and from a non ideal customer you don’t want a 4k contract and even more not a 25k contract. Good article on making certain claims but those claims are not generalizable enough to be considered correct.

Neil,
Yeah right, anything that you can do in less than 2 minutes, do it.
Just a question, how do you manage replying to all your email message?
Don’t you think it kills productivity or are you outsourcing it?

However, i think there is one key ingredient in communication and hard work you didn’t mention, and that is always to know when to overdeliver. I try to overdeliver as much as i can, and i tend to do so with clients and friends that are communicating good with me as well.

What I have found, over time, having this mindset almost always leads to new business opportunities or life long relationships that are key to a succesfull venture.

However am just trying to think about the “Brandon’s” of this world. Is it always about the perks, commissions…..money is definitely important, I like the fact that he does what he enjoys…but does he have hobbies? Passion for something else? something out of work? Does he have a family? Is the spouse & kids happy?

Hi Neil,
Visiting your blog for a long time but commenting for the first time. $ 100K can be unrealistic for many bloggers on the web, not for me though and not for you very practically. The points you have raised are really worth understanding. They are very important and not only apply to blogging. I can understand that why you could have achieved this success over the years. Thanks a lot for all these tips.

Inspiring post for a quick read while at lunch break. Really liked the ideas you bought with your parents experience. This reminds our times in Qatar with my parents where they worked so hard to make money and provide us the best possible life they can.

Thanks for the share Nile. It’s good to have some posts like this from blog I read every week. Hope everyone else loved it and no working their butt off and mastering the art of communication.

Neil,
I’m so glad I discovered you!
Thank you so much for this post. It is exactly what my executive communication coaching business is built upon.
What I like most about your post is it’s a great example of how we can have several people saying the same thing, but in different ways. I may have said this on my blog, but you say it differently here (and very well, I may add) which may reach a different group.
Thanks again.
~Linda

Well you might not be making $100k annually as you’re just naff – however, hard work is always a good bet. As is some smart business acumen and a good old fashioned DOLLOP of social media savvy. It all needs to come together perfectly and then you’ll earn.

In 2012, I spent a lot of time on some reverse-engineering campaigns that saw some of the biggest names in marketing go under the microscope.

In the end, the research turned up that those biggest names, some of which insist that “success is easy” and “effortless abundance” is indeed a reality, were working from 6am to 10pm to establish the legends we know today.

Great post as usual Neil, keyword being work hard and good things will happen! Completely off topic but I was wondering if you could recommend hosting for a person just starting out a new site that will hopefully scale in the future and could pay around 20 to 30 a month for a good host?

Really liked the last para “And if you don’t care about money, you should still work hard and be a great communicator. No matter what field you go into, such as the non-profit world, those two things will help you accomplish your goals.”

Thanks Neil Such a nice and inspirational blog. I really impressed with this blog . And I always eager to read your blog but never say you but after read this blog I start to communicate with People easily.And the best example is that I Post a comment in your blog . Thanks Neil …

I can tell you one thing about having a strong work ethic and putting in more hours than anyone else. If its a union job you will be disliked for it and they may try to let you go because you are making the rest of them look bad.

I challenged myself to respond to phonecalls, emails, and text message within 2 hours, and social media messages within 24 hours since reading this post. I have seen better engagement with my clients. Such a simple thing but it holds so much value.

I understand replying 200+ comments is also hard work.
The best about you Neil is still you are working hard after many achievements. I think the harder part is second half when you achieve few things and you get relaxed.

Great suggestions; I would actually add another one – empathy. You have to be able to put yourself in other people’s shoes. It might be your boss, your customer, even your suppliers. Without being able to connect with people and understand what they need you will never achieve the success you crave.

Neil – I would even go a step further and leave out the 100K part. You’re not very effective if you can’t communicate and you’re never going to be effective if you have zero work ethic. Doesn’t matter what income you make.

PS – I heard you on the smartpassiveincome podcast. Great interview and information. Keep up the great work.

A very good and inspiring post……. There is no alternative to hard work however intelligent or talented you may be…… Communication is also an important part in modern fast paced life as people are not so patient and time is very precious………..

Agree Neil!
There’s always important to maintain focus and persevere. Decide on a strategy and bulldoze all the way through. Or you will just give up later and say it’s impossible. And you can’t reach your success.

I really appreciate this post Neil, as it supports the fact hard work didn’t kill anyone.

There are tons of times when I see friends all sitting together with the usual self-pity party complaining about their income yet they do nothing different. Many think I am crazy to want to have an iPad and smart phone on me all the time, but to respond effectively one has to always be ready to do so.

Hi Neil, I think this is the second time I am now commenting on one of your posts…that is the most I have ever done! I love your blog and I love the way your pieces evoke such passionate responses. I couldn’t agree more with everything you have said- communication and dedication are the keys, although in today’s fast paced world many seem to happily think that a quick fix and a quick solution has to be the way forward.

Thanks, for guiding me about what i have to do now because i also want to become successful and millionaire. I always think that what is necessary and from your post i understood that hard work, work ethics, better communication skill is required.

I respectfully disagree although you can certainately attain success by working harder and ocd communication I believe its far more efficient to just work smarter. I am in said bracket and I can name off 10 people in my immediate office that work harder than me but they spend time on things that dont matter or have low impact. I can accomplish more than them in less time because of better tools and a constant filtering of my workload to ensure only high value tasks are being accomplished.

How true. Now most people expect to work less but achieve more…especially in online business.
But in reality, it still takes a lot of work and time to be spent.
too much false expectation set in the industry

Neil I have a account on kissmetrics and using it for quite some time but didn’t knew that you are the mind behind it but i think i got the reason why i m not making huge profit even my site drives a lot of traffic
thnks !!

“Unfortunately” you are damn right – from my own experience (I’m close to 40 yrs now) – the more successful are those that are ambitious, nevertheless that often they are not the smartest and brightest ones.
And I say “unfortunately”, because it would be much better for all of us if the smartest were those to thrive, not the most ambitious.
Of course, a combination of both is the thing to be admired.

You bring up a great point. I think in our society hard work really goes a long way towards “success”. However, some smart people are perfectly content not making as much, yet being content in their own ways

Thanks for this information I agree 100% with you. I am a online marketer who has made a good income from home but I definitely lack the communication skill that I should have. I believe by improving my communication skills it would take me from 5k a month to 15k a month. Thanks I needed to read this article.

Hello Neil !
You are absolutely right that some bloggers are too lazy to clearly communicate. Communication is the life blood of business. I really liked this post, as it is true. Both are the important point to be successful.
Thanks.
Derek

hey Neil !
Yeah I have also seen such people who just want profit but they are not willing to work hard. You are right that they are talented but lazy. This is great post for them to motivate. I hope this would work for them.
Thanks.
Barrett

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About Neil Patel

Neil Patel is the co-founder of Crazy Egg and Hello Bar. He helps companies like Amazon, NBC, GM, HP and Viacom grow their revenue. The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web, Forbes says he is one of the top 10 online marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies in the world. He was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and one of the top 100 entrepreneurs under the age of 35 by the United Nations. Neil has also been awarded Congressional Recognition from the United States House of Representatives. Continue reading